The Sane Lunatic

The category of racing games has been dominated by a handful of franchises over the last couple of decades. I've been lucky to play one or more editions of these games. Like any form of entertainment, video games cover a wide span of genres with sub-genres within them. In the broad category of racing games, there are two broad factions: Arcade and Simulations. Most competitive driving games offer a close-to-reality simulator experience, often with cars and tracks directly from global motorsport. Meanwhile, an arcade-style racing game needs to offer more in terms of entertainment as well as engaging driving physics. So, when XBOX needed a platform-exclusive title to expand on the success of its Forza Motorsport racing simulator into a more fun-to-play racing game genre, it gave us one of the best open-world driving games ever: Forza Horizon.   The title made its market debut on October 23, 2012, and it is now in its fifth generation, i.e., Forza Horizon 5. Developed by Playground Ga...

Walking up to the ticket counter of your nearest cineplex to see what's the next available show, irrespective of the genre, is an adventure I haven't taken in some time. But that's how I ended up watching this movie and it was an interesting experience.   This movie is so out of my realm, I had to read the title multiple times to make sure the title was as mushy as it sounds despite having a far more exciting poster design. I recognised the lead actors - Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton - which gave me confidence that the movie would at least pack a good performance. And I was right. The movie is clear to establish its overarching premise early on. It's a story about storytelling with the lead character being a professional academic in the field of narratology, Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton). On one of her adventurous excursions, the English lady somehow ends up with a trinket that houses a Djinn (Idris Elba). While trying to clean the glass bottle, she ends up summonin...

Movies and shows that fall under the genre of horror may have the same base objective – to scare you while entertaining you - but go about it in very different ways. The horror production toolkit includes jump scares, gore, suspense, handheld PoV and the grainy security cam where you can never see who did it. But the true key to any horror story is stupidity. The characters have to be exceedingly stupid to keep putting themselves in perilous situations while ignoring clear signs that something is not quite right with their surroundings. Worse yet, the dumbest and least aware character who tends to set things in motion is almost always a female.     I usually only watch horror movies by myself or with a friend of mine. The first half of the film usually focusses on individual hauntings and brutal killings before the dopey characters try to become ghost/monster hunters. Some side characters would get murdered or disappear to suggest that something evil is afoot. However, the d...